Cosmic Cycler: Manhattan

Sunset gets chill on their latest release – a full album released digitally alongside a smoky shell cassette tape via bandcamp. Manhattan is full of textures and atmospheres, with a subtlety that synthwave isn’t exactly well-known for. “Sensitive” is built around a sample that is not terribly obscure but that sonorous drum and the synth whine that caps the lyric make it new. Like Maple Syrup, another Russian-based producer (if his listed location is to believed), Cosmic Cycler plays a lot with jazz samples, lifted out of context & draped all over vocals that tart up clear but sparse percussion. I want to call this “lo-fi” – there’s a roughness to it, as if it’s hewn by instinct and intuition rather than by musical theory – but it’s just too damn smooth and romantic. These are nine short cuts that are thick with atmosphere and lustrous to the soul.